oops, that was a typo on my part. I meant to say "connected to this competition" My point was that its possible that their license goes beyond just printing things about the competition. But as others have said, its par for the course.

The test was outside so it could just be an exposure jump. I don't think they are reversed because depth of field appears to increase continuously.
Seems to be an awesome lens though for almost half the price of the Nikon 35mm f/1.4

I dont think its underhanded, however, this legal terminology gives them more right than people have been saying:

" ... in any of their publications, their websites and/or in any promotional material connected to this competition." can easily be read as: ANY of their publications, and of their websites not connected to this competition and ANY promotional material connected to this competition. In other words, it would certainly be forseeable for them to use the material in a publication that has nothing to do with the competition as long as its THEIR publication, and not a third party publication.

My point is the "... connected to this publication" does not have to tie to all three of the parts of that clause, just the last part about the promotional material.

all that being said, I still dont feel there is anything underhanded or dishonest about this. You know that you are granting a non-exclusive license, retaining copyright, in the hopes of being published (or maybe just winning money).

And i completely aggree with heartyfisher about the types of material in a contest. sure its a marketting reason, but there is nothing wrong with contests being about marketting, and there is no reason costest have to be "arty". (your point about homelessness and christmas)

It may very well be dead pixels or due to higher ISOs. I just did a little analysis of which images had them and which didn't. Oddly, everything with an exposure UNDER 8.0s had them while everything OVER 8.0s didn't. Seems counterintuitive to me. I would think that a longer exposure would lead to MORE noise artifacts (or would be more likely to show dead pixels), not less.
For the record ISO was 400 and aperture was f/7.1.

I mess up all the time in my photos and just use the spot removal tool in Lightroom. It is too much to try and figure out what it is. But, I suppose cleaning the sensor might help. If it is a pixel related issue then it will not go away. And, you may find it in other photos of a uniform background.

That's what I thought as well. However, the shutter was only open for 6.7s, and others where the shutter was open for up to 9s didn't display this. The D90 does have LENR and it was on.
Also, I found it interesting that the noise artifacts showed up in the same place each time they did show up.

How long is the shutter open? Does the D90 have LENR? I don't think so, but if so use it. Otherwise you can snap a dark frame with the lens cap on for the same amount of time and subtract it from the photo.

What you are seeing is noise generated by the long exposure. They deal with this all the time in astrophotography.

As part of my son's photography class, he wanted to try "painting with light," similar to the shots that Picasso did. So we created a slightly "ghetto" set up: Placed the camera on the tripod, triggered by a remote. While he held the shutter open, I painted using the lights. When I was done he triggered a Nissin flash remotely by hand then closed the shutter. Crude, but interesting.
However, upon closer examination, I noticed a number of red and green pinpoint spots on SOME of the images. While you can see one red one just above my left wrist here, you may have to view at original size to see more of them. It's definitely sensor related, as when they do appear they appear in the same locations. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason (or pattern in the EXIF data) as to why they appear, at least not that I can tell. I don't see anything like this during "normal" use of the camera. I even took a few 20s star exposures the other night and noticed nothing.
So what do you all think? Dirty sensor? Damaged sensor? Limitations of the D90 sensor? A light reflection/refraction issue related to the use and positioning of the flash?

lol! You have done it now ! in 10 years when you are the president it will come back to bite you ! ;-)

seriously though I dont understand what you see as being "dishonest". you seem to say that there is some misrepresentation happening but its not clear to me what it is. I don't understand the relevance of the "homeless" statement (and related paragraph) to the competition.

Its not unlimited license, its only licensed for reproduction related to the promotion of the competition, and you still retain copyright.

yes, i understand that the pictures should be used in connection with the comp, its just they get an unlimited license for any picture sent that bothers me, i feel that it should be our decision as to whether we grant permission for use or not in any situation.

and i just dont like the underhanded nature of it .... i mean seriously, its 100% about grabbing pictures imo, and 0% about art. the comp just seems like a ruse to me.

it struck me how there was nothing about christmas time, nothing about the homeless problem around london, things id normally expect, and the 3 categories are just the stuff they use in their marketing. ya know, its OK if they want to do that, but they shouldnt fake it as a competition, i feel like they are being very deceptive, and i cant stand deception, it annoys me.

so, anyways, even though ive had second thoughts, as far as i know the story is gonna run in the newspaper this week, hahaha, im nervous tbh, i have a feeling like im gonna get in trouble over this. have to wait and see. ill let you know what happens ....

What the original poster's quoted language establishes is that an entrant can't come back later and say "Hey, I don't want you using my photo anymore" and force the University to destroy, for example, printed flyers or whatever. It's perfectly reasonable to expect that if you enter a contest your images might be used to promote the contest.

There are actually many "competitions" that take your pictures.. so you are right to be careful. but this one seems ok.
1) you retain copy right
2) they can only you your picture only for stuff related to the competitions.
3) They cannot sell/on sell the pictures.

eg: of a bad one
"
Ownership of proposals and reproduction rights

The designers transfer all copyright and other intellectual or industrial property rights relating to his or her proposal. These rights will then become the exclusive property of the Organizers which will be able to use, publish or dispose of them as it sees fit, without geographical limitation or any other restriction, via all forms of printed (publications, posters, promotional material, etc.), digital (websites, multimedia presentations, etc.) and/or audiovisual media.
"

I do not see a problem here, the sentence ends in "connected to this competition" .

If SOAS would not be allowed to use the images in their publications, they would not even be able to plublish the winning pics...

And if your pic would win and bget published : even better...
It also says that copyright remains with you, so not only you can stil sell the images, without their permission, but also they will have to add your name to them when publishing....always .

This , to me, sounds one of the better regulations on a competition, many others would stipulate that you would loose the copyright to the work..

@Tao - not every competition is the same, most of the times You only have this kind of closure when Your photo wins.

as for the main topic, I think that it is a cheap way of gathering snaps and therefore I rarely send any of my snaps to competitions - as I don't have time to read all of the fine print before sharing photos.

as for using next snap... well, some snaps are unique. I like to sketch with my camera, though I'm not using is as machine gun and don't fire 2-3-4 same snaps in a row.

This is common, but he's right in that they've found a cheap way to build their image library. While you may not win any prizes, don't be surprised if you see one of your images in next year's school brochure. Consider it a cool addition to your portfolio. If you're really concerned about this, then it's likely because you're already getting paid significant money for your images. If that's the case, why enter a contest?

A shoe store in my town did something similar. They offered gift certificates of $250, $500, and $750 for options when they wanted to rename their store. Every woman in town came to them with dozens of names. Had they gone to a major ad agency to do this, it would have cost them upwards of $5,000. But when you consider the markup in shoes, it only cost them about $750. Smart business if you ask me.